buying oak furniture

moneylover

My daughter is furnishing her first house and is keen to have modern oak furniture in the dining room - table, chairs and a dresser or sideboard. She has looked at lots of websites including Next, M&S , John Lewis, Oak FurnitureLand and the local 'solid oak ranges' type furniture shop.
There is such a variation on price and hard to know what you are getting for your money. I would say she is 'middle market' - the main thing is value for money and not to spend too much ie £800 for a table and chairs not a couple of thousand.
The solid furniture shop says - well, its solid wood that has to be best - other places its either cheap veneer or a mix of solid and veneers even when expensive - so that you get the best pieces of oak presumably. People who sell veneer say that solid wood can warp and crack.
My worry with veneer is how do u tell how good it is? I was reading a review on a table on M&S and someone said how careful you have to be when using the extension leaf, not to chip the table! Also, are dovetailed joints important?

Can anyone give me any tips as to what to look for and questions to ask.
Many, many thanks

Leif

I reckon that places like John Lewis are not cheap, they buy from a supplier here or overseas, so there is a middle man in the way. Shops like OakFurnitureLand, as far as I know, have their own factories, which reduces overheads. Someone here knocked OFL as they make furniture from planks made from lots of strips of wood glued together, and they include sapwood. Also service will not be up to JL.

Veneer is not necessarily bad. It can be used to make cheap materials such as chipboard and MDF look expensive. Obviously the result is not very hard wearing, and at heart it is still cheap. Veneer has a very respectable use. Firstly, you can't use a solid plank for a table as it would be too expensive, and it would warp. You can get around that by using many planks, and then facing it with veneer. Also, lots of planks glued together look better with a later of veneer on, especially if you choose a nice figure or do something fancy such as book matched veneers.

Anyway, the summary of all this waffle is that veneer is not necessarily bad. I personally do not like it, as it is not as robust as solid wood.

Furniture drops in value massively when secondhand. You can find good used stuff, if you don't mind a scratch or two.

Also try the Ercol Factory Outlet for display and discontinued items. I advise visiting to see the stuff. Lastly Chris Sharp Cabinets make solid wood furniture at good prices. They are made in England, using sustainable wood. I have a CSC bed in solid oak, and the construction is absolutely first rate. They have a very limited range of designs, but they are well made, and you do not kill orangutans, or denude Brazil.

moneylover

thank you. I have been reading the other posts on here about oak furniture and along with your post its all been very helpful even if its knocked my rose tinted spectacles into the long grass.

However I am still a bit puzzled. It boils down to the fact that what my daughter buys isn't going to be super duper quality no matter how careful she is - there isn't that sort of money in the kitty. And, as someone else pointed out on another post, tastes change, people move house etc
So there is no point me or her getting too wound up by it all. But I still have some questions. In Oak Furnitureland or anywhere else where they use solid wood, are they still putting a veneer over the top? They must be, if you are not going to see lots of bits of wood? In one place (a local Cambridge shop that buys stuff in , not a chain) they told her that it was solid oak and that the reason there is a tiny channel all around the wood near the edge is that this allows the wood to 'move'. But is it in fact a veneer that is moving? My biggest worry is chipping on edges. I don't know what substrates are used underneath veneer- is it something like mdf - that would look awful. Presumably if its oak underneath it would nt look so bad? Or does chipping of veneer also depend on the thickness of the veneer - or is this all the same thickness and its just the quality of the veneer that's different?
Basically I suppose that I am asking - given that my daughter is spending a modest amount (max £1000 for table and chairs) then sideboard same range, what is it best to go for in terms of everyday wear and tear given that a modern oak range of furniture is what she definitely wants. Also wear and tear apart would she get a better looking piece of furniture pound for pound with a substrate and veneer or with solid wood but veneer?

Have people generally been content with their various purchases once delivery probs have been ironed out - there must be many people on MSE who have spent similar amounts of money as she is about to.

Many thanks

aggypanthus

http://www.furniture-barn.co.uk/Collections/Chester

I was looking for oak stuff and rather liked a range being sold in a local farm/ gift type shop. On searching it out, I found the range on this site, much cheaper. I havent bought any, but having seen it, I think it would be my choice if I had space. IE the first drawer unit at £95 is £225 in the shop.
As others say, its sourced from large suppliers and can be found all over under slightly differing names. The clues are the website has the same pics as the shops brochures.
I bought an Oak coffee table chest style from L Ashley reduced from £500 to 285 this week, but I wouldnt pay the daft prices for their other ranges.

Leif

OFL use solid wood, as far as I know they do not use veneers, but it is easy to check, just visit a shop. I have a small kitchen table from OFL, it is very nice, but I do not like some of their stuff, the extending tables have crude mechanism. John Lewis do a Chiltern table in solid oak (strips), it looks nice, it is pretty good for the money. And so on. I don't think shops like Laura Ashley sell better stuff, I've looked at it, I think it is the same as sold elsewhere, all made in China or Vietnam.

By the way. to check for veneer, look at the grain. If the end grain is wrong, then it is veneered. I've seen quite a bit of stuff at John Lewis that looks solid, but close inspection shows veneers. However, their descriptions are very honest, and upfront.

DirectDebacle

General comments on furniture.

Quality furniture is not just about looks and the material used it is also very much about how it is put together. By combining the two 1st class heirloom furniture is produced and many examples are shown on programmes such as the Antiques Roadshow. Whether it be a simple softwood Welsh dresser or a magnificent extending wind out mahogany dining table. Quality lasts and it comes at a price.

I cannot comment on places such as Oak Furniture Land but suspect they are compromising on quality of material, construction or both.

However if you like what these type of retailers offer and find the price acceptable fair enough. But go in with your eyes open and don't kid yourself that just because something is made of oak it is necessarily a quality piece of furniture.

Avoid buying any wooden furniture with drawers that aren't dovetailed.

Tabletops are made with multiple strips for reasons of economy. An oak tabletop made this way will be no more stable than a properly seasoned wide board quarter sawn oak top. It will be however around half the cost and aesthetically inferior.

With oak look carefully at any metal fittings attached to them. If they are of ferrous metal and attached with steel screws then this is not good. Iron/steel reacts with the tannin in oak and causes black stains. Brass fittings are usually the standard when used on oak.

Stooby2

We just got an Oak Furniture Land Table, chairs and a dresser. They all appear to be solidly built and very well made. You could say the extending leaves on the table are crude. But I'd say they're very simple and should stand up to a lot of use.

I found the service from OFL was great and their delivery guys were the best I've ever experienced. The took great care in bringing it all in, helped unpack and set it all up.

Leif

DirectDebacle wrote: »

Tabletops are made with multiple strips for reasons of economy. An oak tabletop made this way will be no more stable than a properly seasoned wide board quarter sawn oak top. It will be however around half the cost and aesthetically inferior.

Are you sure? I have never seen a table top made from one piece of wood. My Ercol tables have multiple strips, and my late mother's oak dining table made in ~1800 used multiple planks.

The difference with OFL is that they use thin and short strips glued together, which does indeed reduce the cost compared to using full length 4" wide planks.

DirectDebacle

Yes I'm sure. By wide board I mean wider boards, as in your mothers table for example. Not one single board of infinite width.

moneylover

Stooby2 wrote: »

We just got an Oak Furniture Land Table, chairs and a dresser. They all appear to be solidly built and very well made. You could say the extending leaves on the table are crude. But I'd say they're very simple and should stand up to a lot of use.

I found the service from OFL was great and their delivery guys were the best I've ever experienced. The took great care in bringing it all in, helped unpack and set it all up.

Stooby2, can I ask which range you decided upon. Re the extended leaves, you probably looked at several tables - did they all use the same mechanism which you are obviously happy with? Thanks

moneylover

you have all given me so much help - thank you. But one question didn't get answered - if a table chips, is it likely to be less of a visible disaster if it is so called 'solid oak' than if it is veneers. Its the edges of table top and edges of extending pieces that I guess are most at risk no matter how careful you are, things happen.
Thanks